Arthur W. Slagel was an early Mennonite relief worker. He served in famine-stricken southern Russia under the auspices of the fledgling Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). In September 1920, Slagel, Orie Miller, and Clayton Kratz reached Constantinople, where Slagel assembled relief shipments bound for Russia. Eighteen months later, American Mennonite Relief, the Russia-based arm of MCC, established kitchens in the Ukraine. From 1922 to 1923 Slagel supervised a feeding program for 75,000 people, including 60,000 Mennonites.

Slagel was born at Flanagan, Illinois on 13 January 1891. In 1919-1920, upon graduating from Goshen College, he taught at Hesston College, Hesston, Kansas. In 1925, two years after returning from Russia, Slagel married former MCC worker Vesta Zook. He joined a printing firm in Chicago. In 1932 the family moved to a farm near Topeka, Indiana. He died there 22 April 1943.

Bibliography

Harder, Geraldine Gross. When Apples Are Ripe: The Story of Clayton Kratz. Scottdale, 1971: 153-57.